Reflections
by silvershadeus
Summary: Reflections on things that are and things that aren't (formerly
1. Scars

I was listening to Jo Dee Messina's absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking song "Even God Must Get the Blues" and this came to mind. If you've ever heard it, you'd understand, I'm sure. I think Omi was feeling slightly neglected, since most of my fics lately have been focusing more on Yohji than him. Poor little mite.

Disclaimer: I do not own Weiß Kreuz or the characters therein, I'm just borrowing them for a while. 

~silvershadeus~

Disclaimer: I do not own Weiß Kreuz or the characters therein, I'm just borrowing them for a while. 

Feedback, onegai! ^_^

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**Scars**

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It was turning out to be one of those nights. The one where he sat up long past midnight and remembered. Remembered where each scar had come from, physical and emotional. When he would sit up and count each one. When he would wish for a hundred more, if he would come by them the same way.  
  
Sighing, Omi got to his feet, shuffling towards his closet and the full-length mirror that hung from the closet door. He didn't feel the need to flip the lights on, if anyone else was awake and saw it they would worry. And besides, he could see well enough by moonlight.  
  
Pulling his shirt off over his head, Omi stared at his reflection, blue eyes tracing every scar that marred the lines of his body. Never taking his eyes from those of his reflection, he reached up and trailed fingers along a jagged scar that curved just beneath his collarbone to the top of his left shoulder.   
  
He smiled, a small sad thing that hurt to look at.  
  
He didn't mind the scars; they were like a badge of honor. He knew if any of the others knew that was what he thought of them, they would worry. They would think the stress of his dual-life had finally gotten to him, and maybe they would have been right. Maybe.  
  
He knew better, of course. Knew what each scar, what every moment he had suffered meant. What they added up to. Knew that he was most certainly damned for all that he had been, all that he had become, and all that he would be in time to come.  
  
Assassin. Murderer. Killer.  
  
And yet, there was little he would have traded his life for.   
  
That scar, the one that was still sensitive to the light pressure of his fingers on it, the one that had cost him the use of his arm for months was the newest. The one that perhaps meant the most to him. The one he had received while doing the one thing he truly believed in.   
  
The children were safe now, back in their own beds with their mothers and fathers to watch over them. Back where their siblings could fuss over them. Back where they belonged, with their families. Back home.  
  
And he was here, where he belonged. A creature unlike any other. One that could blend into nearly any situation. One that was far more dangerous than appearances indicated. He was like a shark among minnows, and no one else the wiser.  
  
If he could have, he would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. Aya, with his cold façade and emotionless eyes was more feared than he was, and yet they were the same, deep down. They killed, for what was right. For what they believed in, even if their motives for it differed.  
  
Snorting, Omi shifted his attention to a pockmark down low on his side, just below his ribs. It was older, nearly blended into the pale cream shade of his skin. A small patch of slightly darker skin that was barely noticeable. He'd earned that one through the carelessness of his teammates, and yet he'd gotten off lightly, compared to them that night.  
  
Twining around the bicep of his right arm were three faded scars that ran parallel to each other, twisting around his arm until they ended abruptly at his elbow. Those had bought the lives of those same teammates, paid for in blood and pain.   
  
There were other scars, each with their own story, each a price that had been paid to save a life. Each one that had taken a little more of his soul with it. Each one that had made him more into a creature of the night.   
  
Assassin. Murderer. Killer.  
  
Three words that had once haunted his dreams. Words that had once filled him with fear, because he'd known them to be true. And they were, oh but they were. He was all of that, and more. But there were reasons why he did what he did.   
  
And with each scar that covered his body, he found that he could sleep better for it. He found that he was no longer haunted by unheard screams, unheard pleas for help. He found that he had made a sort of peace with himself.  
  
He killed, because not to was unthinkable. If it were murder, then so be it, no one else would do what was needed. No one else could. He knew that now. Knew the burden tied around his neck for what it was, and he welcomed it.  
  
Welcomed the pain that came with it. Welcomed the tears that spilled from his eyes on nights like this. He welcomed it all, because it meant that one more innocent would be saved that pain. That burden that he carried.  
  
Lifting his left hand, he turned it palm up, blue eyes sliding down to the faded line of pinkish skin centered in his palm and twisting around the base of his fingers. Even now, that hand was not quite as flexible as his right. The glass had cut too deeply, severing tendons and ligaments that had gone too long without proper medical care.  
  
One corner of his mouth turned up as he flexed his hand, remembering the panicked screams of the victims. Remembering the way the target's blood had bubbled in his throat as his arrow found its mark. Remembered the bright stab of pain as the skylight he'd knelt on had exploded outwards as gunfire rang out.  
  
It was a miracle that he'd regained as much mobility as he had in that hand. A miracle that he hadn't lost that hand, that arm, at all. A miracle that he'd survived. A miracle that he continued to, night after night. A miracle that he wanted to.  
  
Eternally damned for what he did to save others. The irony had never escaped him, it only made him feel tired.   
  
Assassin. Murderer. Killer.  
  
Turning, he winced at a sharp twinge along his back, a result of the latest mission and a fall from a lofty hiding place. He'd been lucky that he hadn't broken anything in the fall. All he had to show for it were pulled muscles and darkening purple-black bruise down his left hip and side. The pain was secondary, of course. The children were safe, the target taken care of, and no one else had died needlessly.   
  
Pulling his shirt back on, Omi paused to regard his reflection, a small humorless smile gracing his lips.   
  
Like magic, the scars were gone from sight. Nothing to indicate what lay beneath the thin layer of cotton. Nothing to indicate what he had gone through to get his scars, or what they meant. Nothing to indicate what he was.  
  
Omi turned towards his bed once again, silhouetted by silvery moonlight as he crossed the room on silent feet. Slipping beneath the covers of his bed, he drifted off into a deep sleep devoid of dreams or nightmares.   
  
Assassin. Murderer. Killer.   
  
He was all of that, and more.


	2. Gloves

Erm...yeah. This kind of came out of nowhere, I guess. I don't know how to explain it otherwise than saying it was really late and I was really tired, so I won't. Yohji angst is always good though, right? Right? 

>_

~silvershadeus~

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**Gloves**

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Sighing, Yohji sat on the edge of his bed and pulled one of his gloves off. He could see the creases formed where knuckle and palm met. He could see where his wire had begun to wear at the leather on the base of his palm. The weight of his victims pulled the wire tight cutting down into his hand. He could see the slight mark at the pad of his thumb where he pressed down to hold the wire level.  
  
Old. That was the problem. His gloves were getting old. Worn from repeated use.  
  
He could barely remember when he'd been presented them by one of Kritiker's nameless agents back at the beginning. He could barely remember the stiffness in the thick leather when he'd put them on back at the beginning. He could barely remember the way they would fight him when he went to use his wire during training back at the beginning. The way they pulled at his fingers, chafing his skin. The way they made him feel oddly detached from killing at first. The way he hadn't been able to feel the deaths of his victims so clearly as he did now...and even then, he had felt _something._  
  
No longer though.  
  
Like him they were worn in and broken. Used to the job they were asked to do. They kept his hands from bleeding. They kept his hands from being torn open as he sent his wire out. They kept the blood from his skin, even as they themselves became stained with it.  
  
And there...at the juncture of thumb and index finger the leather was a little darker - a little stiffer with dried blood. Old and worn. And soaked through with the blood of his victims.  
  
Somehow he could never quite think in terms of 'target', or 'enemy' when he killed. Somehow that all seemed inherently wrong. If someone defended themselves against an attack by you, did you have that right to call them your enemy?  
  
Not according to the police. Not according to the law. Not according to what was _right_.  
  
But nothing had felt right since he'd first slipped those gloves on. Nothing had felt right since he'd first grasped the weighted end of his wire and used it. Nothing had felt right since he'd felt the death throes of his first victim like a fly caught in a spider's web.  
  
Desperate and frantic. Knowing there was no escape, but fighting anyway because _not to_ was unforgivable. Life wasn't something to be wasted by giving in. It was something to fight for, even if there was no way to win. Even if in the end...  
  
Staring at the glove in his hand, Yohji sighed and turned to place it on the nightstand beside his bed. A twinge of pain - a slight burn - along his palm made his pause. Turning his hand over, he brought his hand to his face.  
  
There. A thin line of blood welling up from a cut at the base of his fingers.  
  
A closer look revealed a razor-clean cut straight across from the base of his index finger to little finger. Any deeper and he would have felt the injury during the mission. As it was, it was a nothing but a fading pain now. Something he was used to after using his wire. Barely noticeable anymore.  
  
The weight of his victims snapped his wire tight across his hands, cushioned only by his gloves. Kritiker armed them with weapons that would allow them to feel the deaths of their victims to keep them from numbing themselves to the act of killing. Yohji's weapon was one where he also felt pain every time he killed. A sharp stinging pain that faded with time with each new life he took.  
  
Like the cut on his hand. Like the part of him that cried out in denial and frustrated rage every time he killed. Like the man he had been once, old and worn. Broken.  
  
Sighing, he lowered his hand and made to remove the remaining glove, when something made him pause once more. Like a phantom whisper in his mind, high and thin and barely there. Easy enough to ignore, and yet for some reason he couldn't.  
  
A night like this one. Not so long ago - and scars. So very many scars that he couldn't believe that the body could have held together...and yet it did. It held together and it moved. It lived and breathed and it _moved._  
  
It moved with a grace all its own. Part cat on the hunt. Part night shadow. Part something else that he didn't have the words to name. Sliding through the silvery radiance of the moon like a creature born to the night. Like a shark gliding through water. Smooth and effortless and infinitely graceful.  
  
And then there was him.  
  
Scarred where no one could see the faded marks. Scarred where no one could trace the old wounds with their eyes. Scarred where no one could see - and pity.  
  
He knew that _that_ body held scars like his. Scars of the heart and of the soul. Scars so deep that not even time would be able to heal them completely. Scars that reached so far into who and what he was that nothing would ever be able to heal them - and yet that body lived. That body breathed.  
  
Could he do any less? With his scarred heart? His scarred soul? Could he?  
  
Reaching out, Yohji picked his gloves up and simply looked at them. Feeling their weight in his hands. Following the way they curved slightly to fit the contours of his hand.  
  
These gloves were done for. They had served their purpose, and done so surprisingly well. He would need to get a new pair in the morning. He would have to spend time breaking them in, wearing them down. Getting them to obey him as these had. Getting them to the point where they kept his hands from scarring - if not his heart.  
  
Smiling - a sad, bittersweet smile - Yohji placed them back on the nightstand and with a flick of his fingers turned the lamp off. In the morning...always in the morning.


	3. Cycles

**Cycles by silvershadeus**

Disclaimer: I do not own _Weiß Kreuz,_ I'm just borrowing the characters for a little bit.

~ silvershadeus ~

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Ironic. 

That's what it was. It had to be, coincidences were one thing, but this...this was more like one of God's cosmic jokes at his expense that he had never once in his life understood. What was more, he doubted he'd ever understand. 

He doubted the others would care or even notice unless he brought the matter up and then they would most likely give him a wide berth, convinced he was on the verge of cracking under the pressure. Why not, after all he was afraid of the same thing. He'd never been meant to do the sort of things they did - hell, he doubted anyone was really. Then again, it wasn't as though it would have been a good thing to say that someone had been born to be a merciless assassin. No, certainly not a good thing to have something like that said about you. 

Still... 

Omi was a damned good killer in his own right, it was almost all he knew in life. Actually, it was everything he knew in life. All of his skills, his abilities were due to his training. His 'knack' with computers and other electronics a result of careful training and a quick mind. Kritiker was definitely an organization that believed in the tenet that hiding in plain sight was the best strategy for everyone involved. Or so they assumed. 

The fact that Omi attended school simply added to the disguise - it gave him extra protection even as it left his vulnerable. Left him on the other side of the glass, able to realize just what it was he could have had 'if only'. Able to realize that had things been different he would have lived a life blissfully unaware of the darker side of life. But things weren't different and he could only continue on as he had, making the most of the life he had been handed. Still, as good as Omi was at killing, he'd been trained to it. It was not, thank God, an innate talent for him. It was simply something he was sadly skilled at. And Kritiker was not in the habit of letting skilled operatives slip out of their grasp. 

Aya and Yohji were, relatively speaking of course, late comers to the club. The Killer's Club, as he liked to call it in the privacy of his own mind. They were very good at killing, just like Omi, but unlike Omi they sometimes failed to see what the emotional impact would be for themselves. They killed because it was what they were trained to do; because it was what they were told to do. And for men like them - men who had very little or nothing at all to live for...for them killing became a way of life. It became a way for them to feel alive even as they ended someone else's. 

It was a heady thing, to feel another being die. To know you were the one to cut someone's life short. Ken knew that of course, none better, as the saying went. After all he felt death on a frighteningly frequent basis and all too intimately. Far too much so for his peace of mind. 

Of them all, Omi was perhaps most fortunate. Perhaps it was Fate's way of balancing the scales in his favor a little more - not enough to atone for the wrongs that had been done to him in his short life, but it was something. Omi was able to kill the way he did because he didn't feel the heart slow beneath his hands, didn't see the eyes dim a hands breadth away from his own. He killed the way the others were unable to. 

Yohji's wire... 

When Ken had been a child he and a friend had done what so many other children do at some point in time. Curiosity being what it was and, they had attempted to build their own telephone. A simple thing, contrived of empty tin cans and a piece of string, but oh the delight on their faces to discover it worked. After a fashion. 

Pulled tight, sound carried further and more clearly as did every little vibration that came through the string. It was those memories that came to Ken every time he heard Yohji's wires sing. Every time Yohji killed. 

Aya's blade... 

Ken wondered about that at times. Whether Aya had chosen the sword, or the sword had chosen him. He'd been told a long time ago that that was the way of things sometimes. Much in the way a kitten would choose you even though you thought you had chosen it. You were convinced it had been your decision all along - your choice - but when it came right down to it, things were blurred. Out of focus. 

Most of the time you didn't really care so much. Most of the time you were content - perhaps even happy - with the way things had turned out. But for Aya...Ken couldn't honestly say if Aya was content with his life as it was, only that he continued to live it. He may not have made the most of it as Omi did with so much ease, or that Yohji attempted to, but he did the best he could the way he knew how. 

When Aya killed...that was when Ken felt closest to him. When Aya struck with his blade, slicing through flesh and bone - _that_ was when Ken felt as though he might one day be fully capable of understanding Aya. Perhaps it was some odd sort of kinship they shared, some hidden sign of brotherhood bought and paid for in blood and death and something far darker. 

Yohji may feel his victims struggle at the end of his wires, fighting off death for as long as they were able - but Aya and Ken lived it. Felt each tremor, each halting breath as it traveled from bone to flesh to steel and back again until they knew without a doubt that they were successful. That they had managed to end another's life. 

Ken had always had a healthy appreciation for knives, and by extension, swords. It had been impressed upon him form an early age that one simply did not play with sharp objects such as knives and like - it just wasn't safe to do such a thing. As he grew older his appreciation shifted slightly, just barely out of line with what it had been as a child, as all things do. Older now, he knew the damage knives could do, but it was this same knowledge that gave him a sense of security. He knew now how dangerous they were, and in knowing that they became less so. Knives were no longer some form of bogey man out to get him if he should be careless or reckless as a child, but a simple - but elegant - tool. Nothing more, nothing less. 

In school he learned the applications man put such a simple tool to. Cutting, slicing, even killing on occasion. To help, to heal, and to hurt. As man grew, so to did man's capacity to destroy. And Ken was ever a product of just such a legacy. 

He was fascinated by pictures of swords with intricately and beautifully decorated hilts, burnished steel sharpened so finely a single hair could be split upon the edge of the blade. Things like that intrigued him, as they had many others before him. So it was no surprise really when one day he happened to come across a reference to some odd creation. 

Bugnuks. Tiger claws. 

Ironic, the way things turn out sometimes. Simply god damned ironic. 

Until that moment he'd thought the closest things to such a weapon existed solely in ink and paper, some comic book character created by one of those crazy Americans. Until that moment. 

He'd had chance to wonder, as the years passed, just how truly efficient a weapon bugnuks were. Surely they couldn't be all that great a weapon - after all, he'd never heard of anyone using them except in books. If they had been effective in the first place they'd still be in use, wouldn't they? 

As even more years passed Ken finally had his questions - on that front at least - answered. In spades. 

He'd learned the harsh reality of steel tearing, ripping through cloth and flesh alike. He knew all too well the sound of his claws rending flesh and bone to get to the wildly beating heart of his victim. Knew the shock of blood heat against his skin as he severed precious blood vessels, leaving men to die in his wake. Oh yes, he knew exactly how cruelly efficient those tiger's claws were. Knew it so damned well he dreamt of it at night sometimes. Lived it. 

Looking back on it now, maybe it was an omen of sorts. Fate's way of saying 'This is your future, Ken Hidaka. Kiss the only life you've ever known goodbye.', perhaps. Or maybe it was one of God's cosmic jokes at Ken's expense and he'd just been too damned oblivious to notice. Whatever it had been, it was in the past now and he had the future to worry about. The present...that was another thing altogether, but it would take care of itself one way or the other. That much he was sure of. Somehow, it always did. 

"Isn't that cool, Ken? Just like that Wolverine guy!" 

Dragging his mind back from places it had no right being, Ken looked down at a sharp tug on his sleeve. Bright eyes in a round face beamed up at him, full lips drawn up in a wide smile as a little boy pointed at a picture in the book he held. 

"Man, what I wouldn't give to have a pair of those. I bet everyone would be so jealous..." 

Swallowing down the feeling of sick dread the boy's words evoked, Ken pasted a weak smile on his face even as he tuned the excited voice out. 

Dark, unruly hair. Eyes so very full of life and enthusiasm and boundless energy. The very picture of innocence, and yet... 

_That was me ten years ago._ Ken thought wildly, gaze flitting towards the back of the flower shop where he could just hear Omi's voice as he worked on arrangements. _Holy God, that was me ten years ago._

Should he say something then? Warn little Michael what lay in his future? Tell him that he was doomed to live Ken's life for him when he was no longer able to? What could he say? Run? Try to escape while he still could? Before he found out what death looked like? Or should he just smile, nod and agree that he'd never seen anything cooler? 

"...I know you're probably busy working and stuff, but my sister wanted to come in on the way home form school and she's over there flirting with Yohji, but, well...I just wanted to show you this because it's so cool and I kind of thought..." 

Shaking his head as he realized Michael's enthusiasm was waning due to his apparent lack of interest, Ken's smile grew a little wider in an effort to reassure the young boy that he did indeed agree with him. 

"Yeah...I used to like Wolverine when I was your age myself, you know." He offered, wincing as the light of full-on hero-worship filled Michael's eyes. 

"Really?" 

So much vulnerability in that single word. So much innocence...and trust. 

"Really." 

"Cool. My sister thinks he's stupid, you know, but man he's got those killer claws! They're just way too cool!" Michael gushed, happily unaware of the effect his words were having on Ken, which was oddly enough the way he wanted it to be. The past was the past, the present was now, and as for the future? That was something he had no control over, no matter how much it galled him at times. 

Still...it was ironic the way things turned out sometimes. Never what you expected, and certainly never how you expected them to. Life was just funny that way.

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End file.
